Literature overview and analysis

¶ … characters in Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. The writer of this paper provides an insight to the things leading to the eventual outcome of Carrie and Hurstwood. The writer uses examples from the book to underscore the paths each life takes and explain why they each end up the way they do. There was one source used to complete this paper.

Many times fiction imitates real life with a hint of reality and truth that are amazing. The characters within the stories written are believable and cause the reader to feel emotions for their plights. There are many classics that provide a foundational understanding and empathy for the characters in the book, and Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie is one example of such work. The novel depicts the lives of two very different people, Hurstwood and Carrie who come from different worlds. As the book unfolds the two characters transform their lives until they end up in almost each other's original starting point. While one character climbs ahead and up in the world, and the other one sinks so low he ends his life in suicide the interesting way that they choose their paths and the inner reasons that drive them make the book a timeless classic.

Hurstwood and Carrie are diametrically opposed in the beginning and they end up diametrically opposed at the end. The author uses their lives to illustrate for the reader the importance that inner drive can play in one's life. The reasons and motives for the actions of some promote the future and end result of those actions.

Carrie starts the story as a poor working class girl with a dismal future and ends the story as a very successful actress with money and a following. She is a woman however who is born with the ability to survive by analyzing her surroundings. "Xaroline, or Sister Carrie, as she has been affectionately termed by the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power and observation and analysis" (Dreiser pp 2).Hurstwood starts the book as a very successful businessman who has class and style but he ends the story broken, homeless, a charity case who ends up committing suicide. At first glance there doesn't seem to be a logical explanation for the paths or the destinies of the two, but if one makes a more detailed examination the cause of each destiny becomes clear.

From the beginning Carrie was as self sufficient woman at heart. She had left her small town to move to the big city and from the beginning she was self determined to succeed regardless of what it took. She lived with a couple long enough to get with Doeut and she moved in with him because he promised to care for her financially. When Hurstwood came around as a friend of Douet's and fell for Carrie she measured his class, world knowledge and wealth to Douet's and all of a sudden Douet looked rather bland by comparison. The entire book is filled with examples of Carrie's ability to self preserve. The character is not written as a cold hearted person with no feelings. She is a woman who can feel for a man but does not ever give 100% of herself to anyone, regardless of gender, or place in her life. While the reader begins to become attached to Carrie because of her innocence and eagerness to succeed they also begin to feel sorry for Hurstwood who is in a marriage that is obviously unhappy. While the reader feels empathy for the man there is also an underlying disapproval that he wants to cheat on his wife. Hurstwood appears to be successful and good at business but when he leaves his wife and the decline of his ability and success begins it becomes apparent that he was more dependent on his wife than initially thought.

There are several factors that are both personal and external that lead to the failure of Hurstwood and the success of Carrie. Hurstwood has a personality that depends very heavily on what people think of him. When he finds himself without his friends that he had in the past and he has no money to speak of he discovers that he does not have what it takes to go to into the world and start over. Oneo fhte lowest points in his life was when he had to take a cheaper hotel room in a substandard hotel to survive. It drove home the understanding that he was a failure in the eyes of society's expectations. "The gloomy Hurstwood, sitting in his cheap hotel, where he had taken refuge with seventy dollars -- the price of his furniture -- between him and nothing, saw a hot summer out and a cool fall in, reading. He was not wholly indifferent to the fact that his money was slipping away. As fifty cents after fifty cents were paid out for a day's lodging he became uneasy, and finally took a cheaper room -- thirty-five cents a day -- to make his money last longer." (Dreiser pp 443). His personality dependent on the success that was given to him in the past and the ability to start over is not something that he is able to do. He believed that he would be happy for life if he only had the love of Carrie, but once he got that he realized that he needed more to be complete. In addition to the internal personality quirks that keep him from starting anew, Hurstwood is hammered by circumstances that are beyond his control. The safe being opened is the first circumstance that is not within his control that causes problems for him. He is not an extremely bright man because he handles it by taking the money that was there. In addition when he marries under another name it is because he is wanted for the theft. This deception causes him to lose the ability to use his former bosses as a reference as well as the loss of his former social contacts. All of this combined, causes Hurstwood to sink into a deep depression. At the same time his wife, Carrie is pulling herself up and determined to be a success regardless of the obstacles that they face. The basic difference between the two internally is that Carrie has always had the drive to pull herself up and improve her circumstances.

The external factors that influence the future of Carrie include the way the world reacts to a woman as opposed to the way the world reacts to a man. A woman in need, especially during that era, was something that cities and society crowded around and wanted to help. The woman could display weakness and it was not viewed as a character flaw. When a man ran into trouble and became needy he was viewed as flawed. The societal expectations were deeply instilled in both of the characters so when Hurstwood hit hard times Carrie had been conditioned to lose respect for him regardless of her feelings for the man he used to be.